XI BURNING THE PRESIDENT’S WORDS AGAIN

On December 16, a woman carrying an American flag, emerged from Headquarters. Behind her came a long line of women bearing purple, white, and gold banners. Behind them came fifty women bearing lighted torches. Behind them came women—more women and more women and more women. Always a banner’s length apart they marched and on they came ... and on ... and on ... and on.... People who saw the demonstrations say that it seemed as though the colorful, slow-moving line would never come to an end. Witnesses say also that it was the most beautiful of all the Woman’s Party demonstrations. They marched to the Lafayette Monument. Their leader, Mrs. Harvey Wiley, stopped in front of a burning cauldron which had been placed at the foot of the pedestal. The torch bearers formed a semi-circle about that cauldron. The women with the purple, white, and gold banners—who were the speakers—grouped themselves around the torch bearers.

Among these women were the State Chairman or a Woman’s Party representative from almost all the forty-eight States; some of whom had come great distances to be present on this occasion. There were three hundred in all.

In the meantime, a huge crowd, which augmented steadily in numbers and in excitement as the long line of Suffragists came on and on and on, formed a great, black, attentive mass, which hedged in the banner bearers, as the banner bearers hedged in the torch bearers. In that crowd were the National Democratic Chairman and many prominent Democratic politicians.

Dusk changed into darkness, and the flames from cauldron and torches mounted higher and higher.

387After the Suffragists had assembled, there came a moment of quiet. Then Vida Milholland stepped forward and without accompaniment of any kind, sang with her characteristic spirit the Woman’s Marseillaise. Immediately afterwards, Mrs. John Rogers opened the meeting, and introduced, one after another, nineteen speakers, each of whom, first reading them, dropped some words of President Wilson’s on democracy into the flaming cauldron.

Mrs. John Rogers declared:

We hold this meeting to protest against the denial of liberty to American women. All over the world today we see surging and sweeping irresistibly on, the great tide of democracy, and women would be derelict to their duty if they did not see to it that it brings freedom to the women of this land.

England has enfranchised her women, Canada has enfranchised her women, Russia has enfranchised her women, the liberated nations of Central Europe are enfranchising their women. America must live up to her pretensions of democracy!

Our ceremony today is planned to call attention to the fact that the President has gone abroad to establish democracy in foreign lands when he has failed to establish democracy at home. We burn his words on liberty today, not in malice or anger, but in a spirit of reverence for truth.

This meeting is a message to President Wilson. We expect an answer. If it is more words, we will burn them again. The only answer the National Woman’s Party will accept is the instant passage of the Amendment in the Senate.

Mrs. M. Toscan Bennett was the first speaker. She said:

It is because we are moved by a passion for democracy that we are here to protest against the President’s forsaking the cause of freedom in America and appearing as a champion of freedom in the old world. We burn with shame and indignation that President Wilson should appear before the representatives of nations who have enfranchised their women, as chief spokesman for the right of self-government while American women are denied that right. We are held up to ridicule to the whole world.

We consign to the flames the words of the President which have inspired women of other nations to strive for their freedom while 388their author refuses to do what lies in his power to do to liberate the women of his own country. Meekly to submit to this dishonor to the nation would be treason to mankind.

Mr. President, the paper currency of liberty which you hand to women is worthless fuel until it is backed by the gold of action.

The Reverend Olympia Brown of Wisconsin, eighty-four years old, burned the latest words of President Wilson, his two speeches made on the first day of his visit to France. She said:

America has fought for France and the common cause of liberty. I have fought for liberty for seventy years and I protest against the President leaving our country with this old fight here unwon.

Mrs. John Winters Brannan burned the address made by President Wilson at the Metropolitan Opera House in opening the Fourth Liberty Loan Campaign, in which he justified women’s protest when he said:

We have been told it is unpatriotic to criticise public action. If it is, there is a deep disgrace resting upon the origin of this nation. We have forgotten the history of our country if we have forgotten how to object, how to resist, how to agitate when it is necessary to readjust matters.

Mary Ingham burned President Wilson’s speech of the Fourth of July, 1914, in which he said:

There is nothing in liberty unless it is translated into definite action in our own lives today.

Miss Ingham said:

In the name of the women of Pennsylvania who are demanding action of the President, I consign these words to the flames.

Agnes Morey burned President Wilson’s book, The New Freedom. She said:

389On today, the anniversary of the Boston Tea Party, in the name of the liberty-loving women of Massachusetts, I consign these words to the flames in protest against the exclusion of women from the Democratic program of this Administration.

Henrietta Briggs Wall burned President Wilson’s address given at Independence Hall, July 4, 1919, when he said:

Liberty does not consist in mere general declarations of the rights of man. It consists in the translation of these declarations into action.

Susan Frost, of South Carolina, burned President Wilson’s last message to Congress in which he again spoke words without results.

Mrs. Townsend Scott burned his message to the Socialists in France which declared:

The enemies of liberty from this time forth must be shut out.

Mrs. Eugene Shippen burned this message to Congress:

This is a war for self-government among all the peoples of the world as against the arbitrary choices of self-constituted masters.

Sara Grogan burned another message to Congress dealing with liberty for other nations.

Clara Wold burned the message to Congress demanding self-government for Filipinos.

Jessie Adler burned the speech to the Chamber of Commerce of Columbus:

I believe that democracy is the only thing that vitalizes the whole people.

Mrs. Percy Reed burned this message to Congress:

Liberty is a fierce and intractable thing to which no bounds can be set and no bounds ought to be set.

Sue White burned the President’s reply to President Poincaré of France.

390Mary Sutherland burned the words:

I believe the might of America is the sincere love of its people for the freedom of mankind.

Edith Phelps burned the Flag Day address.

Doris Stevens burned a statement to Democratic women before election:

I have done everything I could do and shall continue to do everything in my power for the Federal Suffrage Amendment.

Dr. Caroline Spencer burned the words which President Wilson said when he laid a wreath on the tomb of Lafayette, “in memory of the great Lafayette—from a fellow servant of liberty.”

Margaret Oakes burned the Suffrage message to the Senate:

We shall deserve to be distrusted if we do not enfranchise our women.

Florence Bayard Hilles ended the meeting with a declaration that women would continue their struggle for freedom, and would burn the words of President Wilson even as he spoke them until he and his Party made these words good by granting political freedom to the women of America.

After the meeting was over, the long line marched back to Headquarters. A big, applauding crowd walked along with them.